The Lighthill Institute of Mathematical Sciences is hosting an evening of lectures on "Applications to climate policy - how Arctic sea ice melts: some new thoughts and their implications for climate prediction" on 24 March 2010 from 17:30-20:00.

In this lecture, the reductionist, statistical and combined approaches to modelling climate on a global and regional scale will be outlined and compared. Lord Professor Hunt will also explore how to use data on all scales to compare predictions and draw conclusions about global warming.

Dr Feltham will be speaking about the physics of sea ice melting and how this new physics changes if at all the predictions of Arctic sea ice extent.

Lord Julian Hunt

Julian Hunt is Emeritus Professor of Climate Modelling in the Department of Earth Sciences and Honorary Professor of Mathematics at University College London, and previously had been a Professor of Climate Modelling in the Department of Space and Climate Physics, and Earth Sciences, (since 1999). Before that he was at the University of Cambridge where he was Professor of Fluid Mechanics. His current position is Visiting Fellow of the Malaysian Commonwealth Studies Centre in Cambridge University. He is still a Fellow of Trinity College. He is also a J.M. Burgers visiting professor at the Delft University of Technology, Visiting Professor at Arizona State University, Pierre Fermat Visiting Professor in Toulouse, Academic Director of the Lighthill Risk Network and Deputy Director of the Lighthill Institute of Mathematical Sciences. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society. He has honorary degrees from Salford, Bath, East Anglia, Warwick, Grenoble, and Uppsala. In 2001 he was awarded the L.F. Richardson medal for non-linear geophysics by the European Geophysical Society. He was Director-General and Chief Executive of the Meteorological Office from 1992-1997, and was created a Baron in the House of Lords (with the title Lord Hunt of Chesterton) in May 2000. He is chairman of Cambridge Environmental Research Consultants Ltd., which is working world wide on air pollution modelling and forecasting; he helped found it in 1986. He is also a Project Advisor for the Global System Dynamics and Policies Project.

In his research, he has developed new approaches to modelling turbulence, atmospheric flows around buildings and over mountains, and the dispersion of environmental pollution.

Dr Daniel Feltham

Daniel Feltham was appointed BAS Reader in Polar Oceanography in September 2005.

Danny has a BSc in Theoretical Physics from Durham University (first class) and a PhD in Applied Mathematics from Cambridge University, awarded in 1998. His PhD was on the Fluid dynamics and Thermodynamics of Sea ice, supervised by Grae Worster. Danny’s expertise is in the construction and analysis of new mathematical models of physical processes in the cryosphere, using the principles of continuum mechanics and thermodynamics. His research combines the development of new theory with numerical simulations and laboratory experiments, and utilises field measurements and remotely-sensed observations. Together with his postdoctoral fellows and PhD students, Danny performs research in the following areas: interaction of ice with the polar ocean, including deep water formation and export, ice-ocean interface dynamics, water mass modification and marine ice deposition; thermodynamic processes affecting the sea-ice albedo, especially modelling the formation and spreading of melt ponds; and sea ice dynamics, in particular the theory, modelling and experimental determination of the relationship between sea-ice stresses and deformation.

A recurring theme in Danny’s research is the modelling and analysis of cryospheric processes at multiple scales, with particularly good examples in modelling sea ice rheology and melt ponds. Typically, one starts with the scale at which the process is manifest (say, 1 mm to 10 km), and from this develop an understanding and model of how the process may be incorporated into Global Circulation Models.

Currently, Danny supervises three postdoctoral fellows, Dr Daniela Flocco, Dr Michel Tsamados and Dr Alexander Wilchinsky, and three PhD students, Eleanor Bailey, Harold Singleton and Nikhil Radia. In November 2006, Danny was awarded the Leverhulme Prize for major contributions to our understanding of the formation of ice in polar seas. Danny teaches the third-year Earth Sciences course, "Physics of Oceans, Ice sheets and Climate".

Further information can be found on the Lighthill Institute website.

The lectures will be held in the Hardy room, 57-58 De Morgan House, Russell Square, London, WC1B 4HS.

How to register:
The entrance is free and the event is open to all. Please register your interest by emailing Arren Ariel at the Lighthill Institute of Mathematical Science.